Open-source software solutions

Onlight’s technical staff has been providing open-source support services since long before the company’s conception. Our current team has over 75 years of combined experience in developing solutions for: email clients, servers and filters; Usenet servers and clients; compilers; network monitoring; infrastructure; IP switching; VPN; etc. We built our own infrastructure using Unix, Linux, FreeBSD and other open-source software.

Our engineers have contributed to the development of some of the most popular open-source software including LDAP and email programs.

In fast developing technologies like Linux and open-source, experience counts. Depth and breadth of experience is precisely what Onlight provides.

If you are considering an alternative supplier of support, remember to ask them how much of their own business runs on open-source software, and how long they’ve depended on it for their livelihoods. Every application in our company has run on open-source software since inception.

Until recently, the majority of Onlight’s open-source software support focused on applications or systems that we had a hand in designing, writing, building, installing or integrating, i.e. a relatively specialized, hand-crafted service.

In response to customer demand and to the increasing maturity of the open-source software market, we are now offering Linux and open-source software support in simpler, packaged formats.

Why Open Source?

The use of Open Source Software (OSS) provides for highly reliable, low-cost, easy and flexible maintenance, security and transparency. Open source means that the source code (the human readable programs which are later made machine readable) is available to the world at large. Open source also means that the software may be reproduced, modified, etc. by the user.

OSS is typically written and maintained by large numbers of programmers worldwide, some paid (by schools, government, industry group, or business) some volunteer. The large population of computer users and programmers using OSS is reflected in the rapid and ready availability of patches or fixes in event a security or other flaw or bug is uncovered. Also, since the source code to the software is available for perusal, it is much easier for potential flaws to be uncovered and fixed before they are actually exploited by hackers.

From our clients

Tim was phenomenal. He really saved my bacon by finding and fixing the problems on our barcode server.
You guys rock!